Patriots Dynasty Podcast - 2001 Week 1: Patriots @ Bengals

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

The Patriots traveled to Cincinnati to face Corey Dillon and the Bengals. How would the illustrious 2001 season start? Would it be as rocky as the inaugural episode of this podcast? Let's find out together in this week's episode of the Patriots Dynasty Podcast!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/patriots-dynasty-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Christine Brown, and while I have to listen to this podcast as my motherly duty, you have the choice not to. My sons, and of course Michael, sometimes say some naughty things when they're trying to be funny, but really, they're just being stupid. You still want to listen? Go right ahead. I am not your mother. Alright, welcome to the second inaugural episode of the Patriots' Dynasty podcast.

I'm your host, Andrew Brown. With me today, we have Mike Mello all the way from Los Angeles, California, producer, director, screenwriter, actor. Wow, thank you for that. Yeah, well, I got a pump of your tires up a little bit. I appreciate that. They're a little flat these days. Alright, well, I'm sure your talent will shine through on this as well.

I think so. Yeah, I do too. We also have joining us today, Steve Brown, one of my brothers, the one that will actually join us today. Hey, what's up? I think I want Steve, a marketing and golf expert, Steve Brown, so I'm sure that'll come in handy as we talk about neither of those things, and also with, and we have a special guest tonight, we have Jeff Carr, Steve's friend, who is a 49ers fan, so we won't hold

that against him. Jimmy D. Jimmy Graves, maybe. Jimmy Ferry is a 49ers fan when this season is going on, even though I live in New Hampshire. Yeah, well, I think growing up, a lot of us were 49ers fans as well as Patriots fans, perhaps, because it was tough being a Patriots fan back in the late 80s, early 90s. Well, yeah, that's why we watched the season 2000 recap video instead of all the games. Exactly.

Yeah, so let's start there. There was some debate when we started this about when the actual dynasty started, and so the vote was to start in the 2001 season, but I think it's a good idea that we kind of recap the 2000 season because that was kind of the official start date on paper when Belichick took over the team when Brady was drafted, even though he didn't see any of Brady. So we watched, in preparation for this, the NFL Films season recap, which was probably generously titled Building for Tomorrow, and when you have something with that sort of

name on it, you know that the season didn't go well. I always wondered what the shitty teams do with these because everyone gets one of these, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think they make one for every team every year. Yeah. Who's buying this?

I got 2019 Dolphins one. I think completionists are buying these, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing like a Buccaneers one from back in the day when they're still wearing the creamsicles, and it was sad because, I mean, it was basically one replay over and over again because they just didn't have any positive moments on the season. That's going to be the Dolphins this year. Yeah. Same idea.

I don't know. They just made a quarterback switch, so look out. The same quarterback switch that's the, well, the opposite, kind of the same quarterback switch that the Cardinals made, and then they made the obstacle. They switched again. Right. The season after. Yeah.

Oops. All right. So, yeah. So, I guess there's no surprise then that the Patriots finished 5-11 that season, and even before that, they were on a downwards trend anyway because they went to Super Bowl with Parcells and was at 96, and then he left for the Jetsenbrot, Kurzmacht with him with all that hullabaloo, and then. And he took Belichick too.

He did. That's true. Yeah. He took that with him. Yeah. Let's call it a spade of spade here. Yeah. Well, I'm still blaming on Parcells.

But, yeah, yeah, now Belichick can do no wrong, so we're not going to blame him on this podcast. Right. Yeah. Yeah. At least, at least, you know, one, we won't blame him. And I'm talking about a little bit. So, Pete Carroll took over from Parcells and won one last game every season he was there,

so they were 11 and 5 when they went to Super Bowl, then there were 10 and 6 in Carroll's first year, and then 9 and 7 and then 8 and 8 before they finally got rid of them. They bring in Belichick, who went 5 and 11, but beat some, like, surprisingly good teams weirdly. Two of their wins were at Denver against the Broncos who finished 11 and 5 that season, which they'd never win in Denver, and then they beat the Colts at home when the Colts were still in the AAC East back then, and the Colts finished 10 and 6 in both those teams with the playoffs.

And one of their other wins, one of the only other wins they had was against this Bengals team that we're starting the season with. And that's kind of all there was to the 2000 season. There wasn't much to talk about. I beg to differ. There was a lot going on, man. Oh, yeah. I got notes, man.

It's called show prep. All right, let's hear it, because I took notes, too, but all I could find were issues, and I didn't want to start on a long down note. Oh, they're not. I mean, issues, that's a relatable term, I guess. I mean, there are things happening, right, and we're talking about them. My first note is that I can't believe this video exists, so that was the top one. I'm right there with you.

On YouTube. Right. Things you can find on the internet, it's pretty impressive. I mean, I was more interested with, like, you know, the way that Belichick became the head coach, things that were happening with Terry Glenn, the Taiwa incident. So, I mean, this was, like, before social media, so I guess people might not remember care or whatever, but if this stuff was happening today, I think it would be a little bit different. So I don't know if people remember some of that stuff, but I think it's fun to talk

about. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, because that was the the the Canada incident. Is that what you're talking about? Oh, yeah, the with Terry Glenn and Taiwa. Yeah, and Troy Brown, actually. Oh, and Troy Brown. OK, that's a unlikely one.

Yeah, it was them three that went because they played a game from what I understand, they played a game in Buffalo in the winter. And so the the weather was real bad and the three of them were not big flyers. So they stayed up there an extra night because they don't want to fly in the snow, went to I want to say Montreal or Niagara or something like that and got into some trouble on the way back, I believe. I can't remember exactly what it was.

Do you remember? I mean, I'm pretty sure that Taiwa got arrested for ecstasy. Yeah, but because I think they they found it in the car on the way back. But he's right is like his cousins or something. Right. I mean, he's a Hall of Famer, so I mean, I don't care. But Troy Brown doesn't need ecstasy, Stephen. Yeah, you see those eyes? He's just generally happy football is his drug. And now look at Pat Chong,

his busted his burglar arm trips automatically. And and who's still who's still a part of the team? Troy Brown coincidence. That's true. I didn't even think about that. Pat Chong gets popped. Geez. Oh, boy. So that was something. Welcome to the line already.

It's just stuff that happened, you know? Yeah, that's true. I mean, I have read the Troy Brown autobiography and he did address it in there. So what did he say? Anything recap video was kind of nice. There is like a blindside hit on Peyton Manning. Very really liked. Did you watch that part over and over again?

I did rewind that part. Yeah, well, they like played like three times, too. So I got to watch it like 12. Yeah, that's what I was talking about when I was saying there weren't a whole lot of highlights for some of these teams. There was a lot of repeats I felt in this video. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, the highlights for me, I don't know if you guys remember this or not.

But I mean, there was the Michael Bishop, Hail Mary versus the Colts like read before the half. So that was pretty awesome. I would say top 20 plays of the Patriots that year. OK, that was almost a real hot take. There's the fake field goal against the Colts, you know, and then there was a Tmaki Jones interception. So they beat the Colts. That was pretty cool.

We saw a little bit of of Glen. So that was nice before we never saw him again. Let's see that pretty much covers it. I thought it was interesting how better quality like the chiefs primetime game was. Yes, video quality was way better on that. And like Willie was mic'd up, which was awesome. Oh, yeah, that's right.

It's really the beginning in his prime at that point, I think, kind of early 2000s was his prime. And that dude kind of looked like a grown man playing with with smaller children. On the on the same field, he was just so much bigger. I felt like everybody in these highlights are bigger. Like you, they all look like they're a team full of full backs on offense. And just because they're wearing massive shoulder pads.

Yeah, I think that's part of it. But I think they're also just like like defenses were bigger because it was still a run first league back in the early 2000s, like late 90s. There wasn't this focus on the passing game. So people were just massive. Like you look at Lloyd Malloy and he wouldn't, I don't think, last as a safety in today's NFL.

No, it was telling that they're like, oh, true blood cells passed for 3,000 yards and like seven straight seasons. Yes. So that was one of the stats. Yeah. But that is crazy, though, that that was like a major accomplishment. And then you have, I mean, what do you guys think about that, too? I mean, obviously the rules have changed and everything. But yeah, and then you had the next generation that was hitting four. Now you have Mahomes and Breeze who are pretty much doing it every season.

Maybe not Breeze anymore, but I think that five thousand is now going to be the the sort of goal. I think so. And I think that just makes what Dan Marino did back in the day, throwing for 5,000 yards back when everybody's still throwing for three, that much more impressive. Yeah, it does seem like somebody does it. Every year gets real close to it every year nowadays. It's just not quite the same.

Yeah, so that is an interesting point. It was fun to look back on, but seven years straight doing that. Bloods are slinging it. That's something Jeff's got a hot take. Just heard an ESPN today that they think Mahomes can be the first 100,000 yard guy. Oh, I could see that. I could also see Brady playing till he's 48 and hitting it as well, though. That's because he's at 70 something thousand, 78,000. So with the league, the way it is, if Brady can throw 5,000 yards

another five years, why not? I don't know if Brady's ever thrown for 5,000 yards. He has. Yeah, he has. Once, I think. In 07, right? Yeah. Well, you might have done it twice, actually. He's going to do it again this year. We can all agree on that. Fingers crossed. I mean, yeah, he's going to do it every year from now on, I'm pretty sure. Also, I think you would have been made

on the coaching staff on the pads that year, which is pretty interesting with Eric Mangini and Rob Ryan. Scott Peolia was still there. Yeah, there was a surprising the amount of big names back in these days. Yeah, you got Rob Ryan as your linebacker's coach. Yeah, underneath Eric Mangini. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Eric Mangini was a defensive backs coach at that point, wasn't he?

I think so. Oh, I'm looking at 2000. But yeah, I think just the very coaches that were. Yeah. Eric Mangini, defensive backs. Rob Ryan is your linebacker. I didn't realize Rob Ryan was attached to the Patriots in that way. You know, I was just thinking of him as Rex Ryan's long-haired Harrier brother. Yeah, exactly.

And I looked into it further and there's some other guys that nobody really mentions, but check this out. You have Jeff Davidson. Oh, no, hey, Jeff Davidson, O-line assistant coach. Today, O-line coach, Detroit Lions. Next guy, right? He's still in the league. OK.

Marcus Paul, assistant strength and conditioning coach. Now head strength and conditioning coach of the Dallas Cowboys. And the Wayne Walker defensive assistant. He's kicking around as DB coach at Cleveland. So that's something that most people don't talk about. That's true, because you always hear about how all the the Belichick disciples go out and fail because you only hear the guys taking the head coach positions. But the fact that all these other guys are still in the league.

I mean, I know, you know, one that was Josh McDaniel's first year. Oh, that's right. Technically still in the league. But yeah, I think Brian Dable is still in the league as well, isn't he? Because he was. Well. And Maddie Walsh was on the the staff at this point. Do you remember that guy?

I do remember that. Yeah, there's a little video assistant fellow that may have had something to do with the old Spygate situation. So he was kicking around. I'm looking at. Yeah. Oh, Brian. Media guide, by the way. Go ahead.

Yeah. I was going to say Brian Dable is the offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills right now. See? I mean, it's a beautiful thing. But yeah, this Maddie Walsh guy has to be said in the media guide. I was looking it over and it is written that he auditioned to be an MTV VJ and he's single. So that's a good professional resume right there. And finally, last but not least, I would venture to get.

Yeah, I don't. I'm that's too controversial for me to speak on. But I mean, last but not least, the rabion used to be the quarterback's coach and now he's dead. So yes. Yeah. Because he died between the 2000 2001. Unfortunate circumstance. Yeah.

He passed after a stress test. Yeah. So I was the guy that draft Brady. Right. Oh, that's right. Yes. So I think that's a good segue into this 2001 season because there were some things that happened during the off season. And that was one of the big ones was the death of their wider sea of a coach because I think that was kind of like a playing for.

I was Robert Kraft's wife's name. Myra. Myra. So playing for Myra Kraft that year where they had the stickers on the helmets. It felt kind of similar to that. He was kind of one of those people who had been there for a while and everybody talked highly of him. And so and it was kind of an unexpected death. But the other big news was Terry Glenn.

Because he got popped for smoking weed during the off season was suspended for games by the league and then decided not to show up to training camp. Because I think he was there was like some money stuff going on as well. So Belichick turned around and just suspended him for the entire season. Which I think was a precursor to everything he was going to do for the next 20 years. And the NFL PA they you know the NFL everybody was involved. They were trying to figure out if this was within the rules. I mean knowing Belichick he probably studied it up and down before doing it. But exactly.

Yeah. Because there were words going to send set some sort of precedent if Terry Glenn challenged this and then it got overturned and now the players have all this this power. But I'm going to say that didn't happen because we didn't really hear much from Terry Glenn after that. Other than get everyone says you know Belichick can make these crazy moves because he has so much tenure in New England. But Paris he doesn't. This is the second year and he's suspending Terry Glenn. Is their best receiver by far. Yeah.

A manual really. I know man. That's insane. Does he have a super bowling. You got to imagine. Unless you got cut further further on. But they usually give him to everybody who played that year. That's yeah.

I guess. So I mean I think he has a good starting. He has one. What. I don't remember this guy. Absolutely blown up by Corey Dylan. Yeah. He's like bounce off Corey Dylan.

Like he's made a rubber. He just goes flying. Yeah. Especially this this week one game. There's a few people that I didn't even recognize the names. Never mind. Oh yeah. I remember that guy.

It was just like a whole bunch of not even remembering that they were on the team. Outside of like David Patton. Yeah. So that was the thing is because Terry Glenn was suspended for the year. David Patton actually had in the Boston Globe. I pulled up some of the old Boston Globe articles from around this time. And one of them was basically about how he was working at some place like carrying bags of coffee beans and like tearing up his hands before I got to call it.

He was going to be playing for the Patriots. And we all know how that turned out. Yeah. Divine intervention. Yeah. Exactly. Because the carrying coffee was God's punishment for him because he hadn't learned his lessons yet.

But apparently. Just enough. Because he got the call from Bill Belichick once Terry Glenn was out for the year. And we know how that turned out for both of them. For both Terry Glenn and the little speedster. Now Glenn though the interesting thing about him was that he had signed a new contract the previous year. It's kind of a monster one.

It was. Yeah. At the time it was 60 years 50 mil with 11 guaranteed which is like, you know, not much by today's standards. But back then it was pretty decent. Yeah. That's that's top artists even money for the time. Right.

I mean similar to some other deals that happened. Well, and then I also saw that I didn't realize this but Pete Carroll had suspended him before Belichick got there as well. So I didn't see that. Yeah. In 99. So there was already a little bit of a precedent there. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember him always having a tumultuous relationship because even when Parcells was running the team and they had that press conference about Terry Glenn had an injury and Parcells didn't believe that he was injured. He thought he was sitting out. And so they asked him how Terry Glenn was and he said, yeah, she's fine. Right. In true Parcells fashion.

That's like the only thing I remember about Terry Glenn. Yeah. That sparked the whole if you want me to be the cook, you got to let me buy the groceries with Robert Kraft and Terry Glenn. He pretty much hated him. Yeah. Because Terry Glenn was Robert Kraft's traffic, not Bill Belichick's. Right.

Bill Parcells really. Right. Right. And then, you know, obviously Terry Glenn passed in a accident, but pretty much every interview that I heard after that incident was that, you know, he was a good guy who was just troubled and never really figured it out. So it's kind of a sad story in that sense because he had the talent and the style, but I just didn't quite put it together.

Yeah. I felt like one of those guys where it came easy to him before coming into the pros. So it never really seemed like he gave, well, I had to give much effort coming in to know how to do that once he got there. Yeah. And so, yeah, he just never really put it all together. Whereas the opposite side of that would probably be Troy Brown, who didn't quite have the talent, but just worked his balls off and kept making the team.

And from his biography that I read, basically the only, like he kind of just hung around barely by the skin of his teeth on the Parcells and Carroll's teams. But Belichick kind of day one came to him says, I remember you from when I was, I was the defensive coach when I was here last and I've watched a bunch of tape on you and I know what you can do. So we're going to basically feature you in this offense. 1200 yards, five touchdowns this year. Yeah.

Yeah. And in 2001 was his best year as a receiver because he was kind of the number one guy because like I said, who else was it? Especially the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even in 2000, he almost got a 1000 yards. I think it was like 950 or something like that.

So given that team, 944 yards and four touchdowns a year before 12.9 return average in 2000 as well. So he was on his way to be a part of the team in that fashion. The original West Walker. Exactly. He was kind of the original Gunnar Olszewski, if you will. Oh boy. Oh, that's a hot take.

You know it is. All right. So let's, that's kind of the lead up. So let's, let's, because we're, haven't actually talked about the game yet and we're about a half hour in here. But is there anything else you want to touch on real quick before we do get to the game? I mean, Willie McGuinness and Chris Lade had a pretty nice bromance. I missed that and bought it for me.

A couple of notable draft picks for this year was the first round pick was Richard Seymour and they also drafted Matt Light in the second round. So two big names that was kind of the only names I recognized from this draft. There was a bunch of turnover from the 2000 season. The announcers in this game actually point out there was 38 new players from a year ago and 18 of those were free agents. So Belichick basically just gutted the team that he had before brought in a bunch of veteran guys.

And I think that was his way of trying to set the tone for what this locker room was going to be, which I think still holds today. He has, I mean, he's created that core now that doesn't change as much because you got Brady that's there the whole time, but that was his kind of method from the get go was to build that culture of accountability and bringing in the guys who knew what they were doing to help the young team kind of gel a little bit. And if you didn't know that, just watch this first game because the commentators wouldn't get off that topic for basically the whole third quarter when the pages stopped playing

football. Well, it's interesting too, because a lot of the guys are older guys. Like you said, veterans and they're like, you know, they had a little veterans. Right. They have a little bit of like a chip on their shoulder. They had an attitude, which is interesting because it fit with the Belichick type attitude. It wasn't like this arrogant type thing. But like Brian Cox, I remember he was like flipping people off and then he became a

patriot. Yeah. Bring up like an entire like neck roll on his shoulder. That went like almost above the back of his helmet. It was awesome. Looked like the headrest for your car seat was awesome. All right. And the one last thing that they kept harping on too was that this season they had replacement

referees, which I did not remember. Yeah. I do remember that. It only lasted like I think three weeks or the first two weeks. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't surprise me considering what happened after week one. But yeah, it was kind of when I was reading the papers leading up to it. And afterwards it like half the articles are about these replacement refs and how they

did and how they were going to do. Every time they made a call in the fields like, oh, these replacement refs look like real referees. Okay. Now, didn't that happen like a couple of years ago as well? Am I mistaken? It did. Yeah.

Because it was an age of social media. So it was way magnified. Yeah. Right. Right. Blown up because they miss called a Hail Mary for Seattle. Green Bay, Seattle. Packers game.

Right. Yep. And one called it incomplete. One called it a catch and they have the picture of one guy waving it off and one guy waving his hands up. So. So the NFL still hasn't learned their lesson from 20 years ago, I guess. No.

Yeah. I'm sure we'll have that coming up soon again. Whatever the next CBA is for them. All right. So yeah, let's finally get to this game. This was week one of the 2001 season. Like we said, it was in Cincinnati against the Bengals who the year before had not done well.

They were four and 12 or something like that. Something real bad. Yeah. They were four and 12 the year before, but their only real contributor, especially on offense was Corey Dillon. Like the only two names I recognized from the Bengals roster other than John Kittner. And I didn't recognize that for a good reason was Corey Dillon and to chaos spikes. Peter walk.

I remember him and he was pretty good in this game. Yeah. I vaguely remember his name. I don't remember him being as good as he was being hyped up to be, but the man made some quality catches in this game, the very least. Yeah. That one had to grab a sweet. Yeah.

Oh, that was Darnay Scott. Sorry. That wasn't. Oh yeah. Darnay Scott's legit. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I always had Darnay Scott in my head as a quarterback and I don't know

why. I don't know who I'm confusing him with, but it was someone like that. When Chad Johnson was on their team, but he didn't play at all. Yeah. Cause this was his rookie season. And so the, the commentators made some comment about how he looked good in preseason and they were excited to see what he could do. I don't think they're quite understood what they had on that, but yeah.

Speaking of the commentators, I thought that was quite a quality crew for such a game that was probably not towered to be like one of the A list games. It was just Johnson back in the day who makes everything sound really exciting. I didn't think Brent Jones had a much, but Sam Weish, the old coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, actually did a, I thought a really good job. Well, I thought that other guy sounded like Tony Romo a little bit. Which other guy, Brent Jones? Yeah.

Really? I was like Tony Romo? No. I didn't catch that. But yeah, I thought like Sam Weish, he, he kind of had that like you could tell he just came from coaching because he was all about like calling out the players who were getting away with penalties and stuff like that. Like he caught some guy, some offensive lineman holding twice on one play.

Like, I don't know how he got away with one. Never mind two of them. Jeff, Jeff remembers Brent Jones from his playing days. Yeah. Brent Jones was a 49ers tight end, I believe. He was like Steve Young's go to. Yeah. Yeah.

And some, they had some banter halfway through because Brent Jones is 49ers actually beat Sam Weish's Bengals in the Super Bowl. And so Sam Weish's comment was something along the lines of, yeah, they beat us because we couldn't cover their tight ends. I don't know if that was actually true or not, or if he was just pandering to his audience. But to your point, after watching some of the 2000 season, I mean, I didn't realize that such a difference in sort of level of quality between teams, but the announcing unit was pretty, pretty on point on this one.

Yeah. I was surprised because usually, because yeah, I've watched some of the 2000 games too. And you had some, I don't know, Dan Cricky and who was the other guy that did them with them? And they were just not, not the top crew, I don't think. It's kind of like getting Dan Deodor these days or someone like that. I don't get it. Dan Deodor. I don't even think he's doing it anymore, but it's just those.

Oh, no. Who did the last recent Patriots game? It was Iron Eagle and Dan Fouts. Yeah. It's like getting that crew. Yeah. What about Scottie Zolack? You like him?

I like Scott Zolack, but only because he's such a huge homer. I kind of enjoy that, especially because he's a local guy. I enjoy that same with like Gil and Gino back in the day. What's that recap video? Just had just Gil and Gino. It was amazing. Yeah. I love hearing those two call again because they were just kind of like, that was like

the history for me is hearing their voices. Oh yeah. Mom used to mute the TV and then put the radio underneath it and Gil and Gino. I'm pretty sure that's where we got our hatred of TV commentators actually was from Paul. She would yell at the TV with the best of them. Some other general things about this game that I found interesting was extra points still from the one-yard line. And yet there were people that still almost missed them.

And the fans in Cincinnati in this game were like super hard-nosed. That's an amazing mustache. Yeah. There was a whole bunch of mustaches. It's almost like the 80s hadn't left Cincinnati yet in 2001, but they had the hard hat but with the famous colors. It was beautiful. All right.

Let's see what else we get here. Let's do like best and worst because I got a good worst. All right. Well, yeah. Is there anything else you want to touch on before we do that? I mean, there is quite a bit on here. I mean, I think it was such a, I mean, nothing really happened in this game. It was one of the more boring games I've ever watched.

But there are, you know, you see certain signs of things. I mean, you saw the toughness of the team in the first half. I mean, they kind of like gave up in the second half. But Bledsoe was slinging it, taking the hits as usual. And he had just signed a contract that was supposed to basically be his career contract where he was supposed to retire in New England. He was just coming off of that. So he was sort of supposed to be the savior of the franchise at that point.

Yeah. I actually wrote down the comment that the commentator said. It said, oh, here's Drew Bledsoe. He signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract that should keep him a patriot through the end of his career. Yup. Week 1, 2001. Well, it's crazy because they also said that he was the second longest with the team,

probably of like active players, and Farve was number one. He was out like nine years. So you look at Brady now, he's going on 20. I mean, that's just unheard of. It really is. Yeah. 20 years in the league is for a non-kicker is out of control, but they have all those with the same team is even more so.

Because even Brett Farr, who's like the poster child of longevity, how many teams you end up playing for three at the end of the day? Because it was most of it with the Packers. Yeah, and the Vikings and the Jets. I think that was it, right? Yeah. Well, actually, he was with the Falcons. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Man crushes, ended up going somewhere else. Like Montana went to the Chiefs. Yeah. Where did Steve Young go?

Yes. Steve Young. He started it with Tampa. I wanted to say he went to the hospital, but that would be very funny. Yikes. I know. He's moving on. Really.

I love it. All right. Yeah. I think that just just touching on Drew Bledsoe again. He I was surprised at how mobile he was because in the few couple of games that I watched of the 2000 season and then this game, he was not afraid to take off, which was surprising because he was like six, eight, 180 pounds.

He was not a massive dude. He's just kind of tall, gangly guy, but he was not afraid to like take off and try to lower the boom on people, which, you know, and see how that comes back to bite him. Well, that was the other thing though. It's like throughout the game. And I think throughout the 2000 season,

from what I saw every announcer pointed out, man, I don't know if the coach likes him doing this. Oh man. I don't know how long he can stay in there. So, I mean, obviously foreshadowing, but it happened every game, which I mean, you could say it's a lines fault, but but so I don't know, man.

Like he held the ball on hold on to it a little too long. He, I mean, those rollouts didn't help the across the body across the field. I mean, so I don't know if it's his fault or the old lines fault, or they didn't have receivers or what, but it was awful to watch. Yeah, it felt like at least early in the 2000 season that I watched. A lot of it was the old lines fault, but I think there's equal blame to go around because he would like

double clutch or even triple clutch it on some players. His first guy was no, but it took him a while to go through his progressions. And because the row line wasn't stellar, I think led to a lot of sacks, but it wasn't just their fault. He kind of seemed like there's always one of those plays where he's falling down and he's just kind of hucking the ball up without looking at where it's going.

And you just kind of pray that it's not an interception because every once in a while it would be. Wow. I hope you guys watched this game all the way through because right at the end there's a guy wearing a gigantic furry Bengal's head like a cat head. I missed that one. I watched all that through, but I don't remember seeing that. Oh yeah.

I think towards the end of the fourth quarter, I was kind of hoping this game would just end. Yeah, I kind of felt like that. I mean, they made it competitive at the end somehow. I have no idea how, but it was a pretty rough one. I mean, I'm looking at, you know, from the Bengal's perspective, you have Corey Dillon who was just like a monster and it was like great to see that.

I don't know why they didn't mean that more. That's a thing, yeah. You look at it like our running backs. I'm looking at it like our Redmond Antoine Smith and Kevin Faulk. I think Antoine Smith or maybe Kevin Faulk. Or maybe Kevin Faulk. I don't remember. One of those was the top pressure with 33 yards.

So, I mean, pretty awful all around. I'd say. Yeah. I was surprised how much they were trying to get their fullback Mark Edwards involved. Like he had like three or four carries. They were throwing screens to him. That was my worst.

Your first half, your second half first drive was three plays calling Mark Edwards number. First down. It's like, oh, well, that didn't work. That's shocking. I love that guy. He was, I mean, yeah, he's basically Devlin now. I think maybe he touched the ball a little bit more,

but same guy. I think he's Devlin, but without the talent around him on offense to take away his touches. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, guys, I got to roll soon. All right. Hey, wait, we still have so much to do.

Hold on a second. You guys can talk to yourselves then. You guys can talk to yourselves because you guys are doing a great job of that. Steve, just give me your best and worst, and I'll cut it in where it needs to go. You heard my worst of starting the second half, just dishing the ball to Mark Edwards over and over again.

Yeah. That was a surprising play call, but what are you going to do? I guess viable. Yeah. What was your best? Actually, honestly watching Corey Dylan and just getting a sneak preview of what he's going to do in the Patriots.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he looked apart that he could, he was fast and he was strong. He's fast for a big guy. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Cool. All right. I mean, it's good night. All right. Love you. All right. Well, now that he's gone.

Real podcast. Oh, boy. That was awkward. And I thought he was. I thought he was gone too. And I was going to see some nasty stuff. No, I didn't even hear the beat. I didn't.

All right. Now. All right. Now he's actually gone. Are you lying? No, I just saw him in trouble in the past. I saw his name drop off the participants list. You can check.

Oh, the participants list. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I can't believe we didn't even touch on like the kicking game. And that was like the highlight of this whole thing. You have the. Really? Yeah.

You have. Venetary. Right. I mean, money and snow already at that point, building a name for himself. The opposite. You have Neil Rackers, which. I mean, the year before he went,

I mean, the last year, I think he was like a great player. I think they, they kept him in. But he went 12 for 21. I. That's rough. That's like the opposite end of the spectrum there. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. And then we have like the. Greatest punter of all time on our team. Apparently. I really realized how nasty this guy was. It felt like the way they were talking about them. It didn't feel like he was the best punter of all time. It felt like he was.

The punter who had lasted the longest on the worst teams. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It felt like the Vinny test of already type of. Yeah. Cause what do you say? The guy's like, I did the math and Lee Johnson has a over 28

miles of punting yards. Yeah. It's insane. And I mean, one of the highlights of the game was at 76 yard punt. Yes. Yeah. I had that written down too.

And the four. If that was like the Patriots students of today, it would have been down to at the one. So we're actually, I mean, it would have been a 76 yard punt like for real. Yeah. Oh yeah. But it was a.

I was surprised at how quickly they were jumping on those. Like as soon as the ball hit the ground, the dollars like jumped on and didn't like let it bounce and see where it would end up. It's very unpatriot like it felt like. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of a right sloppy execution, but I mean,

Yeah. That dude was cool. Yeah. It's a shame that the punter is one of my highlights, but hey, Yeah. So far, the punter and the highlights.

Those are the building blocks of the Belichick's teams. Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong. I think Troy Brown was also a highlight. If we're going to talk about. Yeah. If you want to be real about it, then. I mean,

if we're doing the player of the game here, he's obviously the one. You know, would he have a hundred, a hundred seven yards or something like that in the touchdown? Yeah. Yeah. That touchdown in the second quarter and just felt like he was the

only guy who was doing any sort of like big plays on offense. Like they didn't have any real big player. They had one past the tight end. I think that was. Probably the longest technical play. I think it was that your main Wiggins maybe. But it was Troy Brown, who was the only one getting open like.

Every time they needed something like in the fourth quarter, where they were like stuck in their own territory, like on the, on the touchdown drive. Drive. They were on there like they're inside their own 10. And it was third and third and long and. Somehow blood. So fit it through two defenders to a falling over Troy Browns.

Like, yeah, that's, that's what I remember. Like I didn't actually remember anything from this game, but that play I think was the, the most familiar out of all of it. Yeah, it was interesting. Same for me. I was wondering as we kind of look back at these games, how much I would actually remember this one didn't really. Stick with me.

No, I had no memory of this game whatsoever. And I thought I remember the story lines around it, you know, but I, and I remember like the Brian Cox signing, which I was pretty into Roman Pfeiffer. And there was also interesting, speaking of those guys, I mean, part of the issue, I think, with the defense was they were saying, and I looked into a couple of other things like Richard Seymour was out.

You know, Ted Johnson was, was out. He was dealing with an injury, which kind of reminded me a little bit of the grand injury on that, like field goal that like shattered his arm. But yeah, because he was, it was in preseason. He was on like punt duty or something like that. Yep. And got some sort of hip injury or I can't remember exactly

what they said it was some leg injury. Yeah. And then because the papers were all up in arms about like, oh, well, this is why you don't have your starters playing punt on in the preseason. I thought, well, that's, that's who Ballochek is. They just don't know this yet. Right.

I mean, I mean, he, there was never a departure from that, but it was also interesting because I don't know if you saw the, the stuff that just came out with Ted Johnson about talking about Ballochek and their relationship, but I guess they had a rocky relationship for pretty much the entire, maybe first three years that he, he worked with like a Ballochek. And then Ballochek sort of went up to him and kind of was

accountable for the way he was treating him or whatever. Maybe it stemmed from this, but they sort of made amends. And then things were solid from that point on. Yeah. Cause I remember when Ted Johnson retired or shortly afterwards, there was a lot of talk about him talking about how the pages kind of took advantage of him cause he was the, the run stuff. And he was a guy that was always like the one the clack has.

And he felt like they hadn't really protected him very well from like head injuries and things like that. I think. So I remember that coming out when it, like when he first retired and that was like kind of some of the reasoning why he did it, why he retired and it's kind of, yeah. Yeah. So he just came out and was kind of talking about sort of

Ballochek's personality and demeanor, how he treats his players, but then like how he gets them back. So like the, I mean, it's also, I mean, this is for another, another day, but he was also talking about how the Butler thing, how he was benched in the Super Bowl. And obviously it was serious. And then Ballochek reached out to him afterwards and kind of made amends.

So Ted Johnson's point was that it might have been a tactic on Ballochek's part to treat people the way that he does and kind of play the puppeteer, but it's for another day. Yeah. I mean, you can kind of see that being his MO, whether it is or isn't, but yeah, he's kind of built that, that mystique around himself, I think. Yeah.

And it works, you know, if you're, if you're looking for results, I mean, can argue, but. Exactly. And then, yeah, and then I just had a good. I was just going to say, I think the reason that Corey Dillon had such a good game was because with no Ted Johnson or Richard Seymour, because he rushed for like 140 yards in this game, something along those lines.

Oh, I think the team ran for like 140, but 157 actually. Corey Dillon, I know he had over a hundred. He did. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was 104. But yeah, as a team that ran for like a buck 50. And I think part of it was just that it was hot as balls,

apparently, and you could just see the offense start to, or the defense start to kind of lose their steam slowly every drive because the offense in the third quarter couldn't stay on the field. But I think not having those, those two players, those two like run defense specialists on the field didn't help either. Yeah. And then also the, they were saying that Willie McGinnis, just what he was sort of trying to get back from back surgery

and then Taiwan had the foot injury. So there's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah. They were down to like the, the skeleton crew by the end of it. And I think, I don't think this game should have been this close. Because I mean, it ended 2317. The patients were still kind of in it, but I think it was only because for some reason,

the Bengals offensive play calling decided to keep throwing the ball for no reason. Yep. And making all sorts of weird, strange decisions. Like they didn't run a play-action pass until like two minutes left in the first half when they were gashing the pages on the run game. And they just couldn't, like they just decided not to try a play-action, which would have been the most obvious answer I thought. But they also decided to punt from the Patriots 35,

which I thought was hysterical. Yeah. But hey, that was a hell of a punt. Hey, it better be because he's punt at like 20 yards. You landed what you needed to land. Yeah. I mean, it got it inside the 10, but I mean, it's not like they put it on the one. And I think that set up the Patriots scoring drive, didn't it?

Because that was when they were pinned deep and then managed to drive the length of the score touchdown to keep it because they were up to 13. And then the Patriots scored and kept it close. Right. Yeah. And I mean, if we're talking about how they were running things, the maddening thing watching this game was that, you know, they're running a, basically a four minute drill at the end of the half, the Pats are.

And I mean, it basically looks like there's like a minute and a half left on the clock. I mean, there is no awareness. People are freaking out. They're, they're hurrying. Um, so it's, it's so different from what's a Brady run, often to run that time. And then it ends with a sack. Let's say it takes a sack and then the next play is in the lay of game. So they got pushed out of field ball range.

I mean, it was a disaster. And then at the end of the game, um, the, yeah, the, the two minute drill again was a disaster. I mean, it ended horribly. It was. And I think that this is a pattern in sort of that era, the Blutzo era, unfortunately. Yeah. You can kind of feel why when Brady took over, Belichick was so comfortable with it because it felt like a lot of these games,

even in the 2000 season, the Patriots kind of played to keep it close at the end. And then they kind of set the offense up to have that one last drive to win it. And it just didn't ever really happen because it felt like Blutzo couldn't run that two minute offense. Or it, it seemed like there was a lot of people creating other reasons why it, it wasn't Blutzo. But at the end of the day, he was kind of the one that was always there in the middle of it, not, not working. Right. But, and then as soon as Brady comes in, he wasn't playing out of his mind the rest of the game, but he was just managing to find a way at the end of these games to finish them and get the, the win.

Yeah. I think composure. I mean, the, the announcers were talking about how Blutzo was always cool under those moments. And for me, I think that was a big difference. Like you're alluding to is that it was just a different demeanor where I think you just panic to be honest. But yeah, it, it, it felt to me more like, this might be too strong or wherever. It felt more like a defeatist attitude. We are again, we have to bring this team back.

I put on my shoulders. Let's, let's give this a shot. See what happens. It wasn't like it didn't feel like the, the fire you would see, especially in Brady's early years. Oh, yeah, you're right. Killing out the play of the lie, like screaming at people to get in the right position sort of thing. You know, it quite gave a shit. Yeah.

I agree. Well, I mean, that's, that's tough to say, but. It is. Yeah. And I think with Blutzo being where he was in his career too and how much punishment he had taken, I don't really hold it against him in any way because I mean, I never played any professional sports, but the, you know, playing men's open soccer on a Thursday night. If you're on a shitty team, you kind of, you know what you get yourself into, even if you're the best player on that team,

you kind of, it wears on you. Just, just not being on good teams for a while. So I can understand why he would feel that way, but it wasn't successful for any of them. I definitely played a lot of pickup flag football and I was consistently one of the better players on the team. So we have a sort of similar quite, I guess you could say, Blutzo and I, I mean. Oh, okay. I was going to say, because I like that you were, you were alluding to me actually being the better player on my soccer team, because I definitely was not.

I don't know about that. Yeah. I mean, I, I always thought that you were going to take the MLS route, but, you know, you're proving me wrong. Yeah, we just did the podcast route instead. Much more lucrative. That's right. You want to do best moments here? Yeah.

But before we do, I just wanted to touch on that last drive because I thought the replacement refs kind of reared their head there because that last drive, even though I don't think the pages would have won it, it was still some bullshit calls because it was the one early. I was like, first or second down where a free Russia came in on Blutzo and he kind of shrugged him off and made the throat of Detroit Brown, but they called him in the grass like immediately. Yeah. And so they gave him the sack and brought it away back. So it was instead of it being like second in five, it was second in like 18. Was it like kind of on the way down?

So it kind of looked like it. But I mean, he still got it off. It's not something you would have blown dead. You would just wait and see how the play ended sort of thing. It was like a real quick triggering on that whistle. And then I think the next play was probably a sack because this is your Blutzo in the two-minute trail. But so it was the third and like real long, third and 18 or something like that. And Blutzo actually made the pass to, I don't even know what wide receiver it was.

I don't think it was Patton. I want to say it was probably Bert Emanuel. But he went down and made a dive and catch. Like it didn't look like, like it may not have been a catch, but it wasn't anything that you could overturn with replay and replay. I think it was still pretty new in these days. But they overturned that and called it incomplete. Even though it was no definitive evidence.

So now it's like fourth and 18 from your own 20 yard line. And they decide to, like going back to what you said, roll Blutzo out to his left as a right-handed quarterback. And then he, for all intents and purposes, took a sack on the sideline throwing it. Like just kind of shoveling it to whoever offensive line was in the vicinity. So it wasn't an official sack. I mean, it's kind of sad because, you know, we didn't really get to see too much more of him moving forward.

So that's sort of one of his last big plays. And it is what it is. I mean, fortunately, I don't think anybody really remembers the specifics, but looking back, it hurts a little bit. Yeah. Like I said, I didn't remember any of this game, but a lot of it kind of felt familiar. And that kind of the, the abject failure at the end of these games,

it's like, oh, yeah, I know this. I remember this. I remember when this just used to be the norm where, you know, they'd be closed, but they could never quite close the door because, you know, they get a penalty that would go against them. And then they would just kind of fall apart from there. Or, you know, a play wouldn't go their way early in that last drive. And they just like couldn't, couldn't make up for it, you know?

Yeah. But as now, you know, Brady gets sacked and it's third and 17. It's like, oh, well, he'll, he'll find Amandola over the middle against the Jaguars for 23 yards in a playoff game because that, that's just like, they just rebound and you kind of expect it now most from these, these Patriots teams these days. Whereas back then, like the expectation was exactly the opposite. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's the epitome of the entire Balezzo era minus the Super Bowl. Yeah. And I think the Super Bowl was kind of almost not wanting to believe that it was happening because this never happens to us as well. Yeah. I mean, and that was the perfect storm anyway. I mean, the team around them was something else, but

Yeah. Clearly putting it on his shoulders. Like we've mentioned at nauseam at this point. And I feel like we're not trying to bash a Balezzo here, but Yeah. Just watching, watching some of his highlights brings back some painful memories. Yeah. I think just especially because this was kind of later on in his career too.

So late career drew Balezzo. I think it just been beaten down at this point because I mean, he was setting records before that. Like in his prime, he was a top quarter. I had great fond memories of, of some of those games when he's throwing 70 attempts to come back from 24 down or whatever it was against the Vikings. Like games like that that I just, I still stick out, but 2001, it wasn't for him.

Yeah. He had seen better days. I mean, he played a part in 2001 when we get to that later, but Yeah. It's very true. Yeah. Almost in fairy tale fashion, but like I said, we'll get to that when we get there. So yeah, let's, let's do our best and worst.

You want to go first? Yeah. I mean, if we're doing, I don't know if we're doing the three best moments or the three words. I mean, I think we kind of talked about these ad nodumes. I, if you just want to pick one of each, I think that's all I have left in my list that we have in time. I don't know.

All right. I mean, all right. Fine. The best moment was in a fumble. It was probably one. Yeah. It was one of my, one of the best fumbles I've seen outside of like the butt fumble where I mean, he basically fumbled with nobody touching it.

He just lost sight of the ball. I don't know what happened. Yeah. It looked like he was trying to find the laces and then couldn't. So he decided to throw it anyway and just like, okay. Yeah. It just like squeezed out of his hand. You just really needed the laces for that.

Yeah. And it goes flying backwards. And it's, it's amazing because then like you see Bruce, he just like flying over people trying to get to him. So yeah, it was kind of a fun visual to kind of see the ball just fly to this guy's hand and then Bruce comes into the screen. So that was probably. That was actually going to be my best was seeing Bruce, he doing his run full tilt at the blocker

and just jump over him. Do that flip into the quarterback. Yep. That was kind of like his signature thing was just running at the guy and just jumping over him or trying to and always getting clipped in the legs and always like ending up tackling the quarterback with his, with his ass cheeks or is the back of his legs sort of thing. Yep.

Yep. And then an honorable mention from me will be a blood toe scrambling to the right diving for first down helicopters and yes, you know, that was pretty awesome. I mean, he scrambled all over the place like you've mentioned, but that was, that was an awesome play. Yeah. So he had, he tried the cue, the quarterback sneak on fourth and two. Oh yeah.

Yep. Which was a ball. He got a call and I don't think it was something Belichick was too fond of like he was saying. I think it may have been thinking outside the box, but he got a yard and three quarters, which definitely didn't help. Right. And then worse moments, I would say the 64 yard return to the, that they had after the Patriots first touchdown, like it was sort of back breaking, I feel like, I was surprised

at how unpatriot, like the special teams looked like they didn't be very crisp on any of the execution anywhere. Yeah, it was rough because I mean, you right out out the gate, you're, you're scoring a touchdown. You're, you're the lowly Patriots. So it's this boost. And then literally next play, it's sort of shattered. Yeah.

No, you're absolutely right. It did. And then I'll throw out an honorable mention for this as well. It's more of a cringe worthy thing, but I don't know if you heard the announcer go right there. Greg Robinson Randall. What kind of a guy has two names and then the other announcer goes, Oh, he took on his dad's name after he passed.

I'm like, Oh, that is what you could just, you could feel the silence after that too. Yeah. That was pretty brutal. Yeah. I think that was a, I think it was a Brent Jones special that was two names and Gus Johnson's like, well, actually he took his dad's name because his dad passed like, whoa, boy. I mean, that's some, that's some comedy right there. Yeah.

It was classic. All right. So add to that, I'll give you some honorable mentions too, some things that we didn't touch on yet. I liked the, how excited the commentating team was about the, what they called the shadow box. Oh, okay. Yes.

Scores from around the league. Yes. Brand new things. Like you might, you might notice in the top corner, we have what we're calling the shadow box and it's going to show you updated scores from around the league as they happen. Well, yeah, I mean, did they have the score on the screen at the same time? Cause I don't remember ever seeing the score, but I was seeing the other game scores. No, they did have the score in the top left hand corner, but it was, but it was constantly

super hard to read. Oh, okay. But yeah, but they had what they were calling the shadow box, which is just like a gray box with white scores in it. They were super excited to be announcing that week one. They were able to show scores of other games while this game was happening, which I really thought they had already been doing, but apparently not. And then, uh, the, an honorable mention for the worst was, um, the upcoming schedule,

which not particularly funny, but they kept showing, um, the Pats playing the Panthers next week. Oh, right. Right. Capture me up. And I was thinking, am I watching the wrong game here? I had to go double check. I'm like, no, this is the right thing.

Those game. Why, why are they saying that the Panthers were the next week? And then it finally clicked that between this game and the game schedule for next week was when nine 11 happened. So they canceled those games and pushed them to the end of the season. Yup. So a little bit of a down or 10, this is why not, right? It gives everybody.

That's true. I mean, I can turn it around if you want. Yes, please. Um, I can say that, uh, because of that, though, they played the Jets and that's the Malouis hit, which was a lot. So it could be said that Tom Brady and the dynasty happened because of nine 11. Oh, wait, wait and bring that up a notch. All right.

Oh, I guess that's it guys. And on that note, we'll, uh, we'll be back, we'll be back next time to talk about, uh, 2001 week two, which as we all know now is, uh, not against the Carolina Panthers, but we'll be versus the New York Jets in the game that changed it all. So thanks for joining us and we will talk to you next time. Light up. Whoa. Bye.